A newly released survey of Los Angeles County business leaders reveals increasing optimism about the state’s economy, despite concerns over taxes, fees, energy costs and infrastructure needs.

BizFed, a grass-roots alliance of more than 120 business groups, surveyed its membership on a variety of topics, including access to credit, environmental regulations, public infrastructure and raising the minimum wage.

“What this poll showed us is what we were already starting to know,” said BizFed Chairman Don St. Clair, vice president at Woodbury University. “There is some slowly growing optimism in the business community that things are better than they were over the last several years.”

Sixty-five percent of BizFed members believe business conditions will improve this year — a 25 percent increase over last year’s results. And 36 percent of those polled plan to hire this year, up 20 percent from last year.

The top concern among business owners and executives in the poll released Tuesday is the state’s oppressive burden of high fees and taxes. That was followed by concerns over rising energy and fuel costs, aging public and inadequate infrastructure, affordable health care coverage and government regulations and compliance.

David Fleming, BizFed’s founding chairman, said Sacramento lawmakers have made it tough to do business in California.

“Everyone knows the economy is improving, but before we think it’s all sweetness and light, you have to remember that we live in a state that is pretty toxic as far as business is concerned,” he said. “They raise taxes, assess higher fees and do things that make the whole business climate of this region toxic. And the last thing they ever think about is the effect this will have on business and job creation. Los Angeles is the only major city in this country with fewer jobs today than 20 years ago.”

The issue of taxes and fees has topped the list of concerns in the past four BizFed surveys, and worries over rising energy and fuel costs came in second this year after ranking seventh last year. The issue of public infrastructure — including roads, rail lines, bridges and waterways — jumped up to third place this year from No. 12 on last year’s list. Other concerns include affordable health care coverage and government regulations and compliance.

Michael Carney, an economist at Cal Poly Pomona, said California’s special blend of gas has served to hike fuel costs in California.

“California has some of the highest fuel costs in the nation with all of the air pollution rules,” he said. “We are like an island with our own mix of fuels, so any disruption (with the state’s refineries) or spike in the oil markets will affect us because we have that special blend. When that refinery in Richmond went out for scheduled maintenance, we had a spike in gas prices because we can’t get our fuel anywhere else.”

The 2012 fire at the Chevron Richmond Refinery disrupted gasoline production in California, reducing the state’s available inventory.

The bottom five concerns among business leaders in BizFed’s most recent survey were international trade, immigration, job training, public employee pensions and access to capital.

Los Angeles was ranked the “least business friendly” city in Los Angeles County by 171 survey respondents.

Fleming said California is sitting on a “gold mine” of Monterey shale that could provide more oil and gas than all of Saudi Arabia.

“All we have to do is get it,” he said. “We’ve been doing fracking in California for 60 years without incident. We should forget about all of those environmental arguments and start mining it. It would produce $25 billion a year for the state. It’s waiting for us if we just go ahead and take it.”

The BizFed survey also revealed that most L.A. County employers don’t oppose a hike in the minimum wage. Eighteen percent of those surveyed feel it would have a negative impact on their business, while 60 percent figure it will have no impact or a positive impact on their operations.

“Most of the companies that responded to that are already paying more than minimum wage,” said David Englin, the organization’s executive vice president, who coordinated the survey.

One in five BizFed members who were polled say the Affordable Care Act has had no impact on their health care costs, but 53 percent say there is a negative impact, ranging from a reduction in employees to premium increases and employee contribution increases.

BizFed plans to distribute its survey results to Los Angeles County supervisors and to local state and federal lawmakers “to help them understand the voice of the business community,” Englin said.

BizFed represents more than 286,000 businesses with nearly 3 million employees across all 88 cities in L.A. County.

Kevin Smith handles business news and editing for the Southern California News Group, which includes 11 newspapers, websites and social media channels. He covers everything from employment, technology and housing to retail, corporate mergers and business-based apps. Kevin often writes stories that highlight the local impact of trends occurring nationwide. And the focus is always to shed light on why those issues matter to readers in Southern California.

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